| I don't have to tell you how excited I was when I discovered this binding in the Librairie SOURGET - CATALOGUE N° XIX - 1999 MANUSCRITS et LIVRES Précieux. Here we discover the identity of the MM binder, he signed this binding |
| The discovery of the identity of this binder was made by the experts in the Librairie SOURGET nearly 20 years ago and no one noticed, the most important discovery in 200 years! Certainly not anyone in the Bibliotheque national de France. Well I am glad to put this on my web page finally, I have only been wondering about this for 10 years. |
| In their description of this binding the Librairie SOURGET do not mince their words they are claiming that this is one of the most elegant and luxurious bindings of the 18th century! However they do not give a lot of information about the binder, Gosselin who had a business on the rue St-Jacques along with all the other top of the line binders. Sourget probably doesn't give us any more information because there is very little to be had, the BnF have never even heard of him (check this, do a search of the BnF for Gosselin) and he certainly isn't on their list of important binders, yet we know that Gosselin was one of the best, even making special bindings for Louis XVI. |
| We can however find a Gosselin in Ernest Thoinan's list of binders, see above a clipping from his famous book Les relieurs français (1500-1800) : biographie critique et anecdotique ; précédée de l'Histoire de la communauté des relieurs et doreurs de livres de la ville de Paris ; et d'une Etude sur les styles de reliure Ernest Thoinan,1893. Here he mentions Leon Gruel's text on a Gosselin but it cannot be the same one, our Gosselin was not a contempory of Padeloup, but here I think Gruel could have been wrong he speaks of the tools of Padeloup, these were probably the tools of Dubuisson (who decorated bindings for Padeloup) that he was thinking of and the address of 41 rue Saint Jacques fits with Thoinan's text. |
| Seymore De Ricci also has a signed Gosselin binding in his 1935 publication,French signed bindings in the Mortimer L. Schiff Collection. Volume I [- III] § IV: British and miscellaneous signed bindings New York, [printed by Lecram-Servant, Paris], 1935. Shown below it is his Plate 156. |
| Normally I would not show this because the binding looks nothing like our Gosselin's work, however the number on this Gosseman etiquette has been changed by hand from 49 to 42 (or 41?) which has some correspondence with Thoinan's text... another thing to perhaps consider is that on the eve of the Revolution, fancy bindings went out the window. On searching the name Jean-Baptiste Gosselin I found this note "Marguerite-Louise Derome, épouse de Jean-Baptiste Gosselin, relieur, rue Saint-Jacques, 77, Vendent devant le tribunal civil de Paris, le 30 août 1811, une maison rue des Amandiers 7, 9 et 11." All this corresponds to Thoinan's assumption that the binder is indeed Jean-Baptiste Gosselin. |
| Last year I notified the Bibliotheque national de France, of errors in their attributions of certain bindings to Derome le jeune, however they ignored my advice, (see these pages) Now we have proof, proof that the BnF do not know what a Derome le jeune binding looks like, hard to believe I know. If you want to see real Derome le jeune bindings, look at this recent page on Derome. |
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click here to see the INDEX of the pages from 2017. click here to return to the HOME page. see below links to previous work |
| Even experts are sometimes wrong, before you spend thousands on a book, please do your own research! Just because I say a certain binding can be attributed to le Maitre isn't any kind of guarantee, don't take my word for it, go a step further and get your own proof. In these pages I have provided you with a way of doing just that. |
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